Phew. That would’ve
been fairly embarrassing if we lost, now that the Clippers are relevant again (and attempting to remain relevant)…
although the lead was only 47-42 after the first half, it felt very much like
we were in control .How ‘bout that
Elton Brand!Felt like we were toying with
this team…

Isolating the first 5:30 of the 3rd quarter –
where the Celtics “stormed” back to erase the half-time deficit and take a 1-point
lead - seems like a good place for a breakdown:

11:40 – Clips show some nice patience on
offense, working the ball around the perimeter, find Kaman on the far
block, makes a nice hook shot – 49-42

11:24 – Rondo has the ball up top, looks for Jefferson, Kaman gets caught hung up on a
switch, leaving Maggette to contend with Jefferson, who converts an easy
5- footer (ominous foreshadowing) – 49-44

10:50 – TT nails a 3 – we’re up by 8
points now, 52-44

10:40 – Jefferson,
squatting on the block, gets a nice moving entry pass from Scalabrine,
Kaman is out of position, TT runs over to help and fouls.Jefferson
converts FTs - 52-46

8:22 –
teams’ve been trading baskets – after Clipper make, Rondo runs the ball down before Clips have
time to set up their D, finds a wide open Gomes who drains a 15-footer
from the wing – 56-50

7:50 –
after a missed Brand jumper (tough shot attempt over Jefferson), Clipper illegal D
– cuts it to 5 – on the possession, Delonte dribbles around the perimeter to find Gomes, who
hits from the same spot as before (TT’s blown assignment) – 56-53 (it’s a
ball game!)

7:20 – Sam misses a wide open-3 at the
top of the key

7:10 –
Delonte finds Jefferson at the top of the key, who makes a quick pivot and
softly drops a hook shot over Kaman – 56-55

6:55 –
Mobley has the ball on the wing, backs Delonte down, gets hung up, passes
out to Sam but gets intercepted by Rondo

6:30 –
the “Jefferson abusing Kaman” show continues, as Rondo drops the ball to
Jefferson on the block, who drives around Kaman for a nice baseline shot –
56-57, and Celtics have their first lead of the game – Clipper time out

It’s telling, once the Celts took a lead, the next
possession out of this time out - quick entry to Brand, who drains it.Why did we get away from this?The
3rd quarter ended with the Celts up by 2, as we essentially traded
baskets for the rest of the quarter.Looking at the breakdown above – we see it doesn’t take a lot to "turn" a game.One mismatch (surprisingly, Dunleavy stayed with Kaman for the
rest of the 3rd), couple missed Clipper shots (not displaying the
patience on offense we did in the first half, getting away from Brand) –
and it’s a ball game instead of a blow-out.

Games like this are always interesting – as fans we often hear “the better team getting dragged down to the poor team’s level”. This game felt much more like the “Clippers
turned it on when they had to”.Not
sure why, but we just don’t wanna rip out the other team’s heart.The box score looks tight (Clips had only 9
TOs, outrebounded the smaller Celts +2, +16 FTs made) but we could have, and
should have, broken this game wide open at some point.

Let’s watch for this going-forward – I’m reminded of a past Kevin post , musing on the character and toughness of the 06/07
Clippers (inspired by the Denver brawl).At full strength, we have the personnel to hang with any team in this league.Especially if TT keeps this level performance
up (he’s only 28, and he’s been of late showing the play of a man in his
athletic prime).But we need more if we
have any hope of beating the elite…

Some player notes:

Elton - I take back everything I said about Elton Brand’s
05/06 season being the standard, aberrant “career-year”….

Shaun - Line wasn’t great (0 points / 4 assists / 4 rebounds
/ 0 TOs) but I was pleased by his overall performance.He is able to run our offense; he is in
control.Sure – he can be a sulky
bastard, doesn’t have the best shot, and gets shaken easily - but Shaun’s been
pushing the ball upcourt with fierce-ness and confidence, finding the open man,
and looking to finish.And he is, for
the most part, a relentless defender.

Kaman - gets a flyer tonight due to matchup issues – but he
really can’t defend quicker PFs in this League.

Posted Wednesday, October 29 at 3:20PM

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Brand Talks To Singleton About Trade Request
3rd February, 2007 - 9:17 am
Orange County Register -
A day after stating he wanted to be traded because of infrequent playing time, second-year forward James Singleton was approached by team captain Brand on Friday and apparently the matter was squashed.

Brand declined to divulge specifics of the one-on-one conversation.

“I just told him I heard some stuff and wanted to talk to him about it,” Brand said. “Team stuff ... captain to another player.’’

Dunleavy declined to comment about Singleton’s request.

Singleton has played in 28 of the team’s 46 games and is averaging 1.9 points and 2.1 rebounds in an average of eight minutes per game.

Through 46 games last season, he had played in 36 games off the bench and averaged 3.9 points and four rebounds, with six double-figure rebounding performances.

02/03/07 23:31:32

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